


To The Nocturnal

by voleuse



Category: Battlestar Galactica
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-09
Updated: 2006-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Your wrist has long since healed</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To The Nocturnal

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 2.20. Title, summary, and excerpts taken from Rick Barot's _Occupations_.

_Astronomer to the ten Turkish moons  
counted out on your fingernails._

D'Anna dislikes the discomforts of settlement. Despite her shiny press credentials, however, she's designated unessential personnel, and shipped down to New Caprica with the rest of the cattle.

With her feet planted firmly in the mud, D'Anna stares into the sky and wishes.

A few weeks into this new colonization, she realizes she's not alone. In the shade of evening, former President Laura ROslin nods to her and smiles.

And suddenly, D'Anna finds herself with an angle once again.

_Surveyor to the shiny silicate scar  
of the childhood cut on your brow._

Roslin teaches, D'Anna gathers, in one of the tent schools that have sprung up across the settlement. Up with the fleet, Roslin had been known to dip her fingers into education, but this is the first time since the attacks that she's given it active attention.

Mid-afternoon, D'Anna slips into the back of Roslin's tent and watches her in action.

She's bundled warmly, as all the settlers are, and there's a smudge of yellow paint under her chin. She's reviewing the alphabet--the common alphabet, D'Anna notes, instead of the holy script. Roslin smiles as she talks, and the children are rapt.

To all appearances, she's become the frumpy schoolmarm they all thought she was a year and a half ago.

Then Roslin dismisses the students, and turns her head. A sliver of sunlight catches in her hair, and D'Anna sees the woman she remembers from Colonial One.

When the tent is emptied of children, Roslin puts her hands on her hips.

"Ms Biers," she greets. "How strange to see you without your cameraman."

D'Anna shrugs. "Bell was on Cloud Nine," she explains.

Roslin's eyes flicker shut, and her sigh is an apology.

D'Anna extracts a small flask from her bag. "Drink?"

Roslin raises her eyebrows. "I'll make some tea."

_Geologist to the fault-line crack  
your wrist has long since healed from._

The tea is weak, but the moonshine lends it a kick. Roslin looks askance, but accepts the tipple.

"It's a small press," D'Anna continues, "and we could use a good story."

The corner of Roslin's mouth quirks up. "And there's nothing juicier than the life of an elementary school teacher."

"Who happens to be the former President of the Twelve Colonies," D'Anna responds, then leans forward. "What _does_ she think of her successor's work so far?"

"What everybody else is thinking, I suspect." Roslin leans forward as well, and the fringe of her hair brushes against D'Anna's chin. "How does he find time enough for _two_?"

D'Anna sits back, surprised, then lets out a laugh. "I expected a personal insult, but not that personal."

"Yes, well." Roslin smiles and takes a sip of her tea. "Perhaps I should have kept that off the record."

"No worries." D'Anna pours a few more drops into her mug, then into Roslin's. "It'll be just between us."

_Treasurer to the coin of vaccination  
darkly minted on your left arm._

The flask is close to empty, and D'Anna suspects she's an inch closer to making Roslin budge. So far, however, Roslin's kept her pace away from slander and scandal.

D'Anna doesn't want careful criticism or measured rememberances, though. She wants to know how disappointed Roslin is in the new administration. How she would have coordinated the workforce differently. How she upbraided the Council of Twelve before their dissolution.

D'Anna wants to know angry Roslin is, and what her lips taste like, at the corner where the tea has smeared her lipstick.

But instead of giving D'Anna what she wants, Roslin gives her courtesy.

"Thank you for the evening," she says, setting her mug down. "It's been nice to reminisce."

D'Anna considers pushing harder, but then something flips, at the edge of her stomach.

She grins, and stands. "It's been a pleasure, Madam President." They clasp hands, and D'Anna almost isn't distracted by the brush of fingers against her palm and wrist.

"Good night," Roslin says, but D'Anna barely hears her.

*

 

Outside of Roslin's tent, D'Anna tips her head back and sees beyond the stars.

"It's about time," she whispers.

And she smiles, and goes to prepare.


End file.
